The Witcher 3 Has Been Delayed To 2015

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, initially slated for release this year, has been delayed to February 2015, CD Projekt RED announced this morning. The studio sent an open letter out to the press regarding the delay, and you can read it in its entirety below.

Ever since we started working on the third installment in The Witcher franchise, it has been our aim to produce a title that would take our 11 years of experience in creating RPGS and distill them into a quintessence, into a game that would effectively crown those years. At the same time, we have wanted The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to expand creative boundaries, set new benchmarks, develop the genre as a whole. Ultimately, you, the players, must get an unforgettable adventure to experience in a vast, open world – and that’s most important. We’ve created a story that flows naturally, cinematically, rendered it in amazing sound and visuals, while preserving full freedom of choice – all for you. We knew this to be an ambitious plan, but believed we could achieve it by bringing together our team with its creative energies and current gaming platforms with their technical capabilities. A project this vast and complex would inevitably require special care in its final stages, manual fine-tuning of many details, thorough testing time and again.

We recently reexamined what we had achieved thus far, and faced a choice about the game’s final release date. The decision we made was difficult, thoroughly considered, and ultimately clear and obvious. We could have released the game towards the end of this year as we had initially planned. Yet we concluded that a few additional months will let us achieve the quality that will satisfy us, the quality gamers expect from us. Consequently, we have set the release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for February 2015.

Dear gamers – we know many of you would have liked to play The Witcher 3 sooner, as soon as possible, even. We’re sorry to make you wait longer than you, or we, initially assumed you would. At the same time, we believe the game will prove to be worth the wait and meet the expectations you have of us. We believe The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be an exceptional RPG, one of the best, providing many hours of wonderful entertainment.

Dear shareholders – we are aware of the responsibility that rests with us and thank you for the trust you have granted us thus far. We firmly believe that quality – more than any other factor – determines a game’s success, and that the decision we have made is thus equally valid in business terms.

I only thing I like about this is that I won’t need to deal with those retarded Dragon age vs The witcher arguments any more.

theBridgeburner

The good thing is, now I don’t have the dilemma of what to play in autumn.

charles

**Jawdrop** …. I’m sad. I don’t even have a next gen yet so I’m good i guess.

Masa

2015, no problem here, gives me enough time to upgrade my pc.

Manny Being Manny

Dragon Age 3 wins best WRPG of the year by default now

theBridgeburner

Child of Light might have something to say about that… Plus, though unlikely, there’s Sacred 3, Lords of the Fallen, and Risen 3.

Tarren

That’s a huge bummer, but I trust the Witcher team. I’m sure whatever they would’ve released at the end of this year would have been Game of the Year worthy, but if they feel it isn’t up to snuff, I’ll take their word on it.

EtroAnime

I don’t have a next-gen console yet but this really makes me put it off for now. :) Still was hoping to see this game this year, hopefully this delay doesn’t also cause a delay for Cyberpunk 2077.

theBridgeburner

Two separate teams. But I still think Cyberpunk’ll be delayed, regardless, unfortunately.

Chim_era

owww :’(
Although the delay is probably good for me. My laptop now is just good enough to play the witcher 2 and I won’t buy a PS4 until a next version comes out. I’m sure they are going to make a great game.

And I didn’t know there was such steep competition between the witcher and dragon age. They can’t really be compared. TW is better on story, much better! Dragon age has arguably a better combat system. (the witchers camera makes me sick :p)

Both are not up to par with skyrim anyway but they have their own merits.
And in the story compartment TW offers some competition for skyrim I think.

darke

Isn’t so much competition, but if you release two big-name, time consuming RPGs in the same month, a lot of people will put off buying one or the other until later. So, less sales in the over-hyped first week buying period, and more sales when it’s on sale, or never because people have lost interest and there’s other things to buy at the time.

Shippoyasha

Shouldn’t be too surprised I suppose. Just can’t expect very ambitious next gen games only a year in. Though there are a few like Arkham Knight and Infamous.

Entire games being reworked and priorities shifting is a bit worrying too. Can’t believe how much the hype wheel fell off after the latest Watch Dogs trailer. It seems gaming on consoles still picks up around the 2nd year in. That was similar to last gen for me.

theBridgeburner

Yeah, it always takes a bit for a new console to find its footing. I’m okay with that, though. I knew picking up a PS4 at launch there would be a dearth of titles built with the new console in mind.

It’s an investment thing… and last fall was rather light on games for me, so it worked out well.

Makes sense to me. From what I understand, this is a really ambitious game. I kind of always expect games like these to be delayed, haha. Don’t know if that’s telling of the game industry, or just telling of my strange standards. :>

Kalis Konig

lets hope the delay is not to downscale the graphics. am I right…am I right?

Eilanzer

respect, take all the time you guys need….your company deserves it!

Taylor Davis

Actually that’s Good thing because first of all more improvements and Second of all this game can be taken off the “all the games I have to buy this year” list (there’s quite a bit of games coming out this year). So I’m not complaining :).

MrTyrant

That’s some painful delay.

ReidHershel

Welp, there goes my motivation to get a Current-Gen console this year.

AkiraScare

Hell Yeah quality (^_^)

Kazekage Gaara

Welp shit. Thats sucks.

theBridgeburner

Take all the time needed CDPR. Don’t rush sublimity, I can wait.

wat_wat

Still sucks because I really wanted to play it this year, but I agree. It’s good they’re taking their time to get it right.

theBridgeburner

I am disappointed, but I’d prefer they iron out any bugs etc., Skyrim launch still has a bad taste in my mouth.

Fox

The longer it’s delayed, the more likely it is to run like ass on my PC. ~__~

artemisthemp

It’s better to delay a game than releasing it with major bugs

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